In 1907 Mehring published in the journal *Neue Zeit*:

"As for me, I cannot claim the merit of having discovered either the existence of classes in modern society or the struggle between them. The bourgeois historians had long before me expounded the historical development of this class struggle, and the bourgeois economists the economic anatomy of the classes. What I did that was new was to prove the following: 1) that the existence of classes is bound up only with certain historical phases of the development of production (historische Entwicklungsphasen der Produktion), 2) that class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat, 3) that this dictatorship itself constitutes only a transition towards the abolition of all classes and towards a classless society..."

In these words Marx succeeded in expressing with striking clarity, in the first place, the main and fundamental distinction of his teaching from the teaching of the most advanced and profoundest thinkers of the bourgeoisie, and in the second place, the essence of his teaching on the state.

The main thing in Marx's teaching is class struggle. This is said and written very often. But this is incorrect. And from this incorrectness there constantly arises an opportunistic distortion of Marxism, a falsification of it in the spirit of acceptability to the bourgeoisie. For the teaching on class struggle was created not by Marx but by the bourgeoisie before Marx, and is generally speaking acceptable to the bourgeoisie. Whoever recognizes only the struggle of classes is not yet a Marxist; he may still remain within the framework of bourgeois thought and bourgeois politics. To limit Marxism to the teaching on class struggle — means to curtail Marxism, to distort it, to reduce it to what is acceptable to the bourgeoisie. A Marxist only is one who extends recognition of class struggle to recognition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In this lies the most profound distinction of a Marxist from a common petty (and also big) bourgeois. On this touchstone one must test the genuine understanding and recognition of Marxism. And it is not surprising that when European history brought the working class practically to this question, not only all opportunists and reformists, but also all the "Kautskyans" (people wavering between reformism and Marxism) proved to be pitiful philistines and petty-bourgeois democrats, denying the dictatorship of the proletariat. Kautsky's pamphlet *The Dictatorship of the Proletariat*, publish-

* Added to the second edition.